Spot The Odd One Out

It’s said that we should learn something new every day and in the past 24 hrs I’ve done very well, I’ve learnt 4 new facts. So, which one of these “facts” do you think is not data driven?

The people in the UK should really stop complaining about the rain because the risk of severe weather is much higher in other countries around the world (especially the Indian Sub-Continent).

Between 2009 and 2017, the growth in Cyber Attacks against the Education Industry was almost 9 times higher than the Financial Services Industry (2600% vs 300%). Really? I mean how much money can you steal from a school?

Giving greater analytical insight to customer facing staff can provide significant benefits to an FS company. But only 35% managers asked feel that the front-line staff are actively using data to achieve those benefits.

French bulldog puppies will eat literally anything you put near their mouths, including tree bark, plaster chunks and horse manure.

I thought that might get your attention and I guess it’s pretty obvious that the odd one out is the “puppy” fact. I’m afraid that just comes from my own observations over the past two weeks of looking after my friends French Bulldogs. Not much data involved with this fact and unfortunately, a quick Google search failed to back up my observations.

However, the other facts are well and truly backed by data and come from three excellent examples of custom web applications built using Qlik Sense.

My first learning comes from the Lloyds of London City Risk Index. This application shows how much economic output 279 cities would lose annually on average (GDP@Risk) from 22 man-made and natural threats. Using this app, I was able to see that the cities with the highest proportional risk to their GDP from flooding are mostly based in Asia and in particular the Indian Sub-Continent.

My next eye opener comes from the Chubb Insurance company and their Cyber Index website powered by Qlik Sense. Using this app, I was able to compare the growth in Cyber claims that Chubb has paid out on for the different industries.

Now, my colleague Jordan Morrow (Qlik’s Global Head of Data Literacy) would admonish me for saying earlier that the Education industry has seen a greater increase in Cyber “Attacks” because strictly speaking a Cyber Attack will not automatically result in an increase in Cyber Insurance Claims. And of course he’d be correct. But my answer to Jordan would be “in journalism my friend, it’s all about the headline”.

My final data based revelation comes from an application based on a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal. The survey was completed by senior managers from 300 companies spanning the Financial Services landscape and one of the striking findings of the survey was the benefits that could be achieved by providing customer-facing staff with improved analytical insights. You can see from the chart below that respondents felt that they could reduce customer churn, improve customer satisfaction and achieve enhanced revenues from existing customers. Ironically, these are the self-same benefits that my team was seeking while I was working for a bank based in the UK a few years ago. We had been trying as a company to improve customer satisfaction and reduce churn for a while across a number of business divisions with only limited success. But, the good news is that Qlik has been helping Banks and Insurers achieve these kinds of benefits for many years. And it’s particularly rewarding for me when I get see and hear about the improvements that our customers have achieved.

The final lesson I’ve learnt over the past few days is about “the importance of relevancy”. That’s because, these apps allowed me to quickly find and see exactly the information that was relevant and important to me.

And let's be honest, given that puppies are adorable I think that makes them “relevant and important” to everyone. So just for you, here’s another puppy picture, enjoy…

In his first blog, @Kirbsda discusses using custom web apps to explore data-backed discoveries, w/ puppies in the mix